Office Appliances

OFFICE APPLIANCES. Many office tasks, being of a repetitive character, naturally adapt themselves to the principle of "division of labour," and consequently to the use of machinery also. But these facts alone are not sufficient justification for the purchase of appliances. Four purposes are considered by good office management in deciding when the use of machinery is ad visable. These are Objects of the Appliances.—(I) To save labour. This sav ing should be evidenced in a reduced pay roll. Hypothetical sav ings of "half a man" are seldom realized.

(2) To save time. In many cases this is more important than the saving of labour; to speed up a slow routine, extra expenditure is often an economic advantage.

(3) To promote accuracy. Mechanical methods are advisable when accuracy is vitally important and otherwise difficult to obtain.

(4) To

avoid monotony. The substitution of a machine for manual repetitive movements will usually achieve this. Inventive skill and genius have not been lacking to meet these needs, and the list of available devices is very long, machinery being now extensively used.

Adding and calculating ma chines are largely used for the promotion of accuracy, and save time by avoiding extended search for errors. The ordinary clerk is usually incapable of correctly handling a large amount, even of simple calculations, with a fair degree of accuracy by the mental manual method, and these ma chines have therefore become a practical necessity for the mod em business office.

Adding Machines.

All add ing machines may be used for addition, subtraction, multipli cation and division ; but as certain types are better adapted for multiplication and division, a technical distinction has grown up in the trade between adding and calculating machines, the latter being used more extensively for multiplication and There are two principal types of adding machines : those which print on paper the amount being added, and those which do not— the former being known as listing, and the latter as non-listing machines. The listing machines are again divided into two classes, the first being the full keyboard model carrying a row of keys numbered from 1 to 9 for each column, and the machine of the second class having ten keys arranged in two or three rows. Each

of these keys represents a digit, and the depression of a key for an item automatically causes progressive columnar position. Thus, if 23 is to be added, the 2 is first depressed, then the 3 and the mechanism takes care of the numerical order. The items are printed either on a roll of narrow paper or on a wide form held in the carriage of the machine.

Some models have two sets of adding dials—one for accumulat ing individual totals, the other for accumulating a grand total. On some machines a "split" feature provides for splitting the printing mechanism into two or more sections, so that several columns may be listed and added at the same time and the total of one or more columns printed. On others, subtraction is ac complished by means of complementary numbers, a "comple ment" being any number which, added to another, makes a full number. Thus if the digits are changed to 9's—as 9, 99, 999 and so on—and a I then added, we can convert any number into a full or complementary number on the keyboard of any adding machine. The complementary numbers are usually indicated by small figures on the keys, the two digits on a key, if added, invariably making nine. Other machines perform subtraction by depressing a subtract key. Multiplication is consecutive addition. Thus, if 26 is to be multiplied by 5, it is merely added five times. For division, the divisor is subtracted from the dividend as many times as it is contained in that dividend, the number of subtractions being automatically registered on the counting wheels as a quotient. There is also a small portable adding machine, weighing about 7 lb., operated with a pull-down lever keyboard. A very small adding device, known as a vest pocket machine, is operated by inserting a pick or stylus, in positions for the amounts.